New Japanese Pringles Flavours Like Soy Chicken 'Ramen' Sold In Singapore For $1.60 Each

After the recent buzz surrounding Pringles cup noodles, the American snack brand rolls out more flavours to spice up your CNY snacking. We recently spotted cute mini cans of Pringles that appeared to be imported from Japan (the cans were printed with Japanese words) at a 7-Eleven outlet in Jurong. The packaging also showed tantalising graphics of fried noodles and soupy ramen.

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The new flavours

Helpful English-translated labels on the back of the cans explained that the flavours were Squid Sauce (with a Pringles potato chip hovering over a plate of what we presume to be squid sauce-tossed fried noodles), Soy Chicken (strangely represented by a steaming bowl of ramen — it refers to soy chicken-topped ramen, perhaps?) and Smoked Cheese (anime-looking cheddar in front of a roaring fireplace). 7-Eleven Singapore’s rep tells us the flavours were launched locally last December as limited-edition seasonal items at the convenience store chain’s outlets islandwide, and will be available only while stocks last.

Each 53g can costs $1.60, which is kinda expensive considering that you can get a 147g can of the usual Malaysian-made Pringles from a FairPrice supermarket for about $2.70. But hey, it’s a Japanese import with funky flavours. So we bought all three cans to sample and tell you if it’s worth the premium price tag.

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Squid Sauce, $1.60 for a 53g can

This flavour intrigues us the most out of the three flavours we bought. Contrary to its name, the squid sauce does not contain any squid, as we find out from the ingredients label. Instead, the “squid sauce seasoning” is made from a blend of artificial seasonings including buttermilk powder and soy sauce powder.

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Taste test

The pale yellow chips look like regular old Pringles chips, and taste like tonkatsu sauce spiked with MSG. We suppose the squid sauce here refers to the soy glaze that’s draped over the popular Japanese dish of grilled squid. Kinda disappointing. We’d rather go for a bag of barbecue-flavoured potato chips. Thank you — next.

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Soy Chicken, $1.60 for a 53g can

There’s a strong whiff of soy sauce that hits our nose the moment we open the can. The chips also look unassuming, like the Squid Sauce flavour.

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Taste test

At first crunch, our chip tastes very strongly of soy sauce. So at least it lives up to the ‘soy’ part of its name. But it tastes even less like chicken than, er, Chicken in a Biskit. Oddly enough, its ingredients list also had “squid sauce seasoning” in it. It’s worth noting that Pringles Japan’s chips taste more like actual potatoes than the floury Malaysian variety we get in Singapore; each chip also has a more satisfying crunch to it.

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Smoked Cheese, $1.60 for a 53g can (8 DAYS Pick!)

Smoked cheese sounds boring to us, since almost every potato chip brand out there has a cheese flavour in its repertoire. But to our surprise, this is the tastiest of the lot. Unlike the Squid Sauce and Soy Chicken chips, the Smoked Cheese Pringles have a broad golden stripe running down the middle of each chip, looking like they are loaded with extra cheese. Whee.

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Taste test

These chips are properly cheesy (it’s flavoured with cheddar cheese, onion powder, pepper and paprika, among other things). It also has a strong smoky flavour that goes well with the cheese seasoning. This is the only can of Pringles that we continued munching on after our initial taste test. Yum yum.

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Bonus: Pringles Bites Seaweed Wasabi Flavour, $1.70 for a pack

We spotted packs of this new bite-sized Pringles chips on the same shelf as the Japanese Pringles at 7-Eleven. These chips, however, are a Thai import. The packaging is all in Thai with no translation, except its flavour: Japanese-Style Seaweed Wasabi.

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Taste test

The chips are smaller than the usual Pringles (hence it’s marketed as bite-sized), and its foil packet packaging is a welcome change from struggling with a Pringles can just to dig out the chips at the bottom. But its contents are sadly a letdown. The potato chips taste like the usual non-Japanese variety that barely remind us of potatoes, though they’re heavily sprinkled with bits of seaweed and has a strong seaweed flavour. We couldn't taste the wasabi, though.